St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1887-08-25
JOHN BROWN.

There are many readers of the Cen
fury magazine who have found Messrs
Hay and Nicolay's long -drawn-out life
of Lincoln of exceeding interest. But
there are few who were not disappOint-
ed not to say Disguised with the super
cilious views the historians take OF
John Brown and his life and work in
the August number of that magazine
1t is clearly insinuated that john
Brown was actuated by vulgar vanity
and an adventurer's ambition in all
that he did. To all this the Spring
field Republican makes admirable an
swer in recent editorial. Says the
Republican
Notwithstanding the skepticism of
Messrs. Hay and Nicolay -Thoreau
and Parker and Emerson were as COM
petent to strike the divine average of
history as they. There were good
many thinking beings in the world be-
fore their day who had come to some
positive conclusions about most mat
ters. In the words of one of their
number, who Hay and Nicolay have
heard of only to despise, they persist
in believing that a pOp-gun is a pop
gun, though the ancient and honorable
of the earth affirm it to be the crack of
doom. On the other hand, the human
race has learned to know pretty we'll,
by long experience, what shallow men
commonly ignore-the fatal signs that
fOretell the crack of doom to cities and
to nations. When, therefore, mankind
saw the spectacle of John Brown glib
beted beside that highrOad of history
which jefferson and Washington had
so lately travelled in honor; perceiv-
eng, as by flash of JOve's bolt, that
his crime was their virtue, this old
and wise heart of humanity knew
that the hour had inevitably struck for
death or victory to American demOc
racy. Believers in Gods providence
perceived, too, that here was a man
sent from heaven Cike an earlier John
who also lost his head, poor fanatic)
to cry in America also, "Prepare We
the way of the Lord make his paths
straightm No more crooked corners
for the shelter of politicians, though
they were as well-meaning as Abra-
ham Lincoln himself,-nO more "cOm-
promises of the constitution" but a re-
modelling of the constitution ITSELF
and Lincoln the man of all others
chosen by divine wisdom to do it
1t is the misfortune of these biog-
raphers of Lincoln that they seem in
capable of rising to the hight of their
great argument. Like Mrs. Parting
ton, they are good at a slOp or pud-
die, but the broad main ocean of his
tory is too much for them. They re-
peat the blunder of Lincoln himself in
1860, of undertaking John Brown
and they fall into the vulgarity
which Lincoln never could have COM
mitted, of measuring a hero by the
standard of the meat market. "Weigh
Hannibal" said the Roman satirist,-
show much avoirdupOis i'm that Alpine
commander ~ The scales of history
have another graduation and the
writer who cannot learn that, is book
ed for Oblivion, though he paper the
worlds surface with his chapters. The
trouble with all such estimates of
Brown as Messrs. Hay and Nicolay Of
fer US is, that they do not account for
the mans place in history. He has
come, and come to stay:
And tongues to be his being shall rehearse
When all the breathers of this world dead
How are we to explain this phe-
nomenon Not by any such platitude
as this i: "FrOm beginning to end his
whole act was reprehensible and
fraught with evil result" or this, ellis